A "Compared to Albion Prelude" Matrix

[Sam97531]

Afternoon all,

I'm curious if someone has already done up a comparison Matrix of foundations vs Albion Prelude to look at features, complexity, depth etc. I am one of those players that got into the game back in the TC days, loved it, purchased AP, loved it even more. Was completely turned off by Rebirth despite trying it for a couple of hundred hours on several occasions - but I find myself very interested in X4. I just dont know if I should get into it now or wait for the inevitable terran expansion/DLC

How would you rate this game when compared to AP when it comes to:

Pilotable Ship selection
Ship Customization
Space-combat difficulty
Breadth of play options (transporting people, cargo, making stations to sell spaceweed - lol, etc)
Size of play universe
Immersion
Economy (both challenge and how robust it is so that systems dont suddenly depopulate, etc...)
Anything other metric we should look at?

[The3rdWings]

Pilotable Ship selection - very low, less then half of what you had @ X3
Ship Customization - more interactive with graphical immersion, far less options
Space-combat difficulty - try playing X3 on easy with mods that dumb down enemies, and you will get X4
Breadth of play options (transporting people, cargo, making stations to sell spaceweed - lol, etc) - pretty much the same
Size of play universe - much much smaller with massive empty sectors
Immersion - decent, station walking is nice for a while until it becomes repetitive and boring
Economy (both challenge and how robust it is so that systems dont suddenly depopulate, etc...) - broken, currently no economy in X4
Anything other metric we should look at? - X4 feels like an empty shell of a pre-alpha stage game, and all of us are testers, give it a couple more years and we may have something to look at, for now stick to X3

[The3rdWings]

Pilotable Ship selection - very low, less then half of what you had @ X3
Ship Customization - more interactive with graphical immersion, far less options
Space-combat difficulty - try playing X3 on easy with mods that dumb down enemies, and you will get X4
Breadth of play options (transporting people, cargo, making stations to sell spaceweed - lol, etc) - pretty much the same
Size of play universe - much much smaller with massive empty sectors, you can cross thr universe in less then a minute without SATA
Immersion - decent, station walking is nice for a while until it becomes repetitive and boring
Economy (both challenge and how robust it is so that systems dont suddenly depopulate, etc...) - broken, currently no economy in X4
Anything other metric we should look at? - X4 feels like an empty shell of a pre-alpha stage game, and all of us are testers, give it a couple more years and we may have something to look at, for now stick to X3

[Pares]

Pilotable Ship selection

A lot less ships, but a lot more detailed. Every ship in the game has a cockpit/bridge. Ships have crew. No more M classification, only S, M, L and XL. 3.0 and the Split DLC will add more ships.

Ship Customization

Similar logic to Rebirth, less weapon options, but all types are completely different. Although there are some problems with balancing and usability still. You can paint your ships. You can craft modifications for your ships, but that system is a little rough around the edges with the RNG stats.

Space-combat difficulty

Dogfighting is very similar to previous titles, capital ship combat and fleet movement has its shortcomings, but will see improvements in 3.0.

Breadth of play options (transporting people, cargo, making stations to sell spaceweed - lol, etc)

I think you can definitely do anything you could do in previos games, plus there is sector takeover and actual dynamic wars happening, the universe is generally a lot more dynamic, and 3.0 is promised to improve it a lot further.

Size of play universe

Definitely less sectors than in AP, although for me the universe still feels huge, but it is differently structured with superhighways and orbital accelerators connecting sectors inside the same systems, and a highway "ring" connecting core sectors, which makes them quicly traversable. All sectors are generally a lot bigger than in X3. Draw distance is also a lot higher for stations. 3.0 will introduce more sectors.

Immersion

IMO a huge improvement compared to X3. Even if it is not super sophisticated, stations and ship exploration adds a lot of immersion. Only thing that needs to be fixed is the "unstable" music, which gets disrupted quite often still.

Economy (both challenge and how robust it is so that systems dont suddenly depopulate, etc...)

If you know what options you have and know what you are doing, than it isn't hard to get rich, but I would argue that this was true for previous game too. But ships are cheaper, so you can get a lot of ships sooner than in previous games. I don't have any problems with economy and trading 2.6, everything seems to be working for me. I think most complaints are about the lacking endgame, when you are extremely rich and powerful, but that seems to be addressed in 3.0.

Anything other metric we should look at?

No loading screens at all. Anywhere. Custom player logos. Real simulated docking on stations and larger ships. The map allows you to play the game in RTS mode. Very much improved station building. Natural phenomenon and other things to discover in deep space. No jumpdrives, but you can research teleportation for yourself and then you can teleport to your ships and stations. No plot missions, only generic and war related generated missions. 3.0 and the Split DLC will introduce plot missions.

[Hector0x]

The main difference: X4 simulates far more and goes into greater detail, both graphically and gameplay wise. Wether you consider that to be a good thing is up to you.

In my opinion X4's AI isn't able to cope with all the interdependent aspects the game has introduced. NPC's need resources to build their stuff and they need to continue building stuff to keep their factories running. This can lead to various kinds of problems and the solution is that everything must retain a fairly delicate equilibrium. In X3 the global economy has nothing to do with NPC ship spawns. Even if you blew up every trader and all factories were destroyed, after an hour you would already see the same amount of ships flying around again. Pull the same stunt in a full simulation and you are the only one left forever. Which has a certain allure if you think about it

I like X3 for it's simplicity. The detached economy gives NPC's a certain resilience against huge player involvement without causing them long term problems. NPC's playing by different rules and spawning some stuff in is just necessary so that large scale events can't tip the game off balance. X3's graphics also leave more to imagination. Running around on stations in X4 breaks this magic for me. Performance could also probably be better with fewer unnecessary details and no 1st person gameplay.
But X4 is still a great achievement, has impressive potential, and is already a good game in it's own right. Because let's be real: the jumpdrive was just a workaround hack for X3's limitations. It eliminated an entire level of complexity (positioning your assets). Whoever came up with this teleportation idea was genius. If emergency teleport ever get's implemented i'm going to play an ironman run.